Hiking backpacks and baby- and child-carrier backpacks typically have shoulder straps and hip belts for supporting the weight of the pack contents. The shoulder straps carry much of the weight and provide lateral and sagittal support. The hip belt, however, is intended to support most of the weight of the pack. Hip belts are meant to be used such that the weight of the pack does not rest on the spine but rather on the pelvis, thereby transferring weight through the hips and legs, which are relatively more stable and supportive then the spine.
Hip belts often are not used, however. Some people forego their use entirely, allowing the full weight of a camping weekend to rest on their back. Others might loosely secure the hip belt around their waist to prevent the pack from tilting and moving around on their shoulders. Some may over-tighten, squeezing their belts or midsections. The misuse of the hip belt is a result of both miseducation and poor design. Most people are not aware of how to properly fit a hip belt. The belt should sit at the top of your hips, snugly hugging the iliac crest, so that the weight is comfortably carried by the pelvis.
This education issue is compounded by generally poor design in hip belts. Most belts employ a conventional buckle-based tightening system: two straps extend around two padded portions and are then coupled to each other with complemental buckles. The straps are tightened with a gross adjustment mechanism when the user pulls on free ends of the strap. The user can loosen the belt by lifting the buckles or pulling the strap the other way.
This design tends to force users to make only gross adjustments. Because the strap becomes more difficult to pull as the belt grows tighter, the user must apply more force on the strap, increasing the likelihood that when the strap actually does move, it will move significantly. It can thus be difficult to finely adjust a belt to the proper fit. An improved mechanism for adjusting not just backpack belts, but child-carrying pack belts and other types of belts, is needed.